Presents GIANT LITTLE ONES A film by Keith Behrman (94 mins, Canada, 2018) Language: English Distribution Publicity Mongrel Media Inc Bonne Smith 1352 Dundas St. West Star PR Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M6J 1Y2 Tel: 416-488-4436 Tel: 416-516-9775 Fax: 416-516-0651 Twitter: @starpr2 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] www.mongrelmedia.com 1 GIANT LITTLE ONES PRODUCTION NOTES SYNOPSIS Franky Winter (Josh Wiggins) and Ballas Kohl (Darren Mann) have been best friends since childhood. They are high school royalty: handsome, stars of the swim team and popular with girls. They live a perfect teenage life – until the night of Franky's epic 17th birthday party, when Franky and Ballas are involved in an unexpected incident that changes their lives forever. Giant Little Ones is a heartfelt and intimate coming-of-age story about friendship, self-discovery and the power of love without labels. DIRECTOR NOTES – BY KEITH BEHRMAN I envisioned Giant Little Ones like the best of pop songs, instantly appealing with its energy and flow, drawing the audience along with ease – yet, by the end we have experienced something distinct and meaningful and are left with insights and feelings we didn’t see coming. Giant Little Ones leaps into the dramatic world of 17-year-old Franky Winter and his lifelong best friend, Ballas Kohl. Things have never been better for these guys: they’re popular among their peers, stars of their swim team and are entering exciting new terrain with their girlfriends. It is a time when erupting hormones and flourishing sexuality are coupled with a naiveté still lingering from childhood, when relationships and loyalties are changing along with a shifting sense of self. Giant Little Ones dramatizes something unique to today’s teens. They are acting on the new levels of cultural acceptance for alternate sexual expression, yet still face old stereotypes and prejudices. The experience of “self” and our inter-relatedness with others, especially in our closest relationships, has been a fascination of mine in both my films and private life. After making my first feature film, Flower & Garnet, and a few years of television directing, I gradually became more and more immersed in the study of…well...me. I stepped away from filmmaking and set off to study meditation in ashrams and monasteries in India, Burma, USA and Canada over a period of several years. It was as this chapter in my life was drawing to a close that the voices and story of Giant Little Ones began to emerge. I resumed writing because I knew there was something beautiful and important that needed to be told. I wrote Giant Little Ones to explore modern teen life and family life in this unique cultural moment – to make a film that gives voice to the strength of self and love. And similar to that special pop song that people keep humming, a film has the ability to impact and deeply resonate with people. My wish is for Giant Little Ones to touch many people’s hearts and be a source of hope and inspiration at this pivotal time. 2 ABOUT GIANT LITTLE ONES Giant Little Ones marks writer/director Keith Behrman’s sophomore feature film, following the success of his acclaimed debut feature Flower & Garnet. Shot in and around Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, it stars rising talents Josh Wiggins, Darren Mann and Taylor Hickson who share the screen with veteran actors Maria Bello, Kyle MacLachlan and Peter Outerbridge. The past four years have been a beautiful creative partnership between Behrman and producer Allison Black to develop the script and bring this heartfelt story to life. The story of Giant Little Ones began when Behrman grew concerned over the continuous LGBTQ+ youth suicides he was seeing in the news. These stories resonated with Behrman and while at a silent retreat he had a dream that sparked the film’s narrative. Black had been an admirer of Behrman’s previous work and wanted to collaborate with him. “I thought what he did with Flower & Garnet was incredibly nuanced, thoughtful and elevated and I knew him to be an honest, humanist, compassionate filmmaker,” says Black. In Giant Little Ones, Behrman’s characters grapple with powerful emotional experiences and attempt to navigate a formative chapter in their lives. Franky Winter and Ballas Kohl are childhood best friends, leaders of their high school swim team and are enjoying their high school popularity with their girlfriends. On the night of Franky’s 17th birthday, Franky and Ballas have an unexpected sexual encounter that starts to tear their friendship apart and affect their families and friends. While struggling with his conflicting feelings, Ballas starts a rumour about Franky’s sexuality. The fact that Franky’s father had come out as gay a year before the story begins further fuels the rumour. Solely based on assumptions, Franky is bullied and ostracized by his friends and peers. Life becomes further complicated for Franky when a secret past relationship with Ballas’ sister Natasha (Taylor Hickson) is rekindled. As Franky and Natasha bond over shared difficulties, love and romance start to blossom along with self-acceptance. “I think as human beings we have a wide range of capacities and experiences and attractions, areas of ourselves that we often don’t feel free to explore or fulfill or understand,” explains Behrman. The story speaks to life’s fluidity and the possibility of living the full spectrum of who we are without categorization. “The film arose out of wanting to tell a story that talks about the ambiguity we can experience in our lives in terms of who we are, how we change and come to understand different things about 3 ourselves, and about the resistance that can come from those around us and our society,” says Behrman. Josh Wiggins was first to join the cast. Wiggins had recently worked with Black on the 2016 audience darling Mean Dreams, which had great success premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. Behrman knew Wiggins “had a great depth and sensitivity to him and wisdom beyond his teenage years which was key to the portrayal of Franky.” After reading the script given to him by Black, Wiggins was very eager to play Franky and what made him really want to be a part of the project was the subject matter. “I had never really tackled [this subject] before but once I read it and saw the story and what happens and what it’s about, I really wanted to jump on board,” says Wiggins. For the role of Ballas, Behrman and Black were looking for someone who could embody the heightened “alpha” masculinity of the character – his physical strength and athleticism, attractiveness, and popularity – but Behrman admits “we saw a lot of guys that did that but there weren’t many people who could do that and also have a real vulnerability in their eyes.” The filmmakers found Ballas in Canadian actor Darren Mann. According to Behrman, “Darren was really able to express fear and uncertainty, and the fragility that Ballas is walking into just through his eyes and little looks within that bigger scope of all the bravado.” In Wiggins and Mann, the filmmakers were able to find the right chemistry needed to portray lifelong friends. “It’s been very interesting going from script to screen and seeing Josh and Darren’s incredible chemistry and bond as these two young men,” says Black. The story follows Franky and Ballas from the deepest boyhood friendship through its rupture. Franky and Ballas are faced with real inner battles at an age when perception by their peers outweighs being true to authentic parts of themselves. It is an emotional roller-coaster for these characters as they grapple with confusion, fear and betrayal and ultimately love and acceptance. Wiggins felt the heavy responsibility that came with playing Franky, which took him through a broad range of emotions. “At the beginning of the story he’s very happy, just a bright kid and the more the story goes on the more he descends into a complicated situation. There’s a big shift that I’ve had to play with Franky that’s been really fun to explore but also challenging.” While Mann and Ballas don’t share the same inner struggles, Mann did relate to Ballas’ need for approval and succumbing to peer pressure to maintain his status. As Mann explains, “for Ballas it’s a really big moment, a realization of what all this means right there for him in his life and 4 probably the biggest thing is questioning himself. He is very scared and worried about who he is and then how people will see him, how his dad will see him that way.” Franky’s relationship with his parents is central to how he navigates the world around him and the situation he finds himself in. Powerhouse actors Maria Bello and Kyle MacLachlan brought compassion and generosity as actors and human beings to the roles of Carly and Ray Winter, and approached their characters with care and authenticity. Bello was an early champion of the film and in addition to playing Carly came on as an Executive Producer. As Black recalls, “we sent her the script and heard back from her the next day, which never happens. Maria is such a special person that she personally reached out by writing a beautiful letter to Keith asking how she can be of service to this film.” Bello found the script captivating from the first page. “I received the script about a year and a half ago through my agents and read it in an hour, got back to them within an hour and 15 minutes and said I want to do this movie,” says Bello.